User Story

User stories are representations of small instances in peoples' lives. They are a type of scenario used in design processes to enable a designer to empathize with a user and, from there, generate ideas that fit into the user's life.

Why it matters

The format — as a traveler, I want to save a search, so that I do not repeat it — is deliberately small: one person, one want, one reason. That 'so that' clause is the load-bearing part; it is where fake requirements go to die, because a feature nobody can finish the sentence for is a feature nobody needs. Stories keep the backlog written in terms of someone's life instead of the database schema.

See it

The last clause is the load-bearing one — if nobody can finish the sentence, nobody needs the feature.

Related terms

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